Can a lore person explain the 'Emerald Dream' to me?

Honestly, outside of a few lines questing in Mt Hyjal and some rare encounters with green dragons, I feel like the game didn't really fill me in to well on the whole Emerald Dream thing (or maybe I skipped reading too many quests). Seems like a lot of people have a HUGE interest in that for an expansion, so can anyone tell me why?

Who are the players?
What is the conflict?
What is the 'Emerald Dream'?
Why do we care about it?

The Titans created it as a blue-print for Azeroth. (What it would look like if life never touched the land and only nature grew). They then put The Green dragon aspect Ysera there to watch over Azeroth.

An Old God (Probably N'zoth) is corrupting the dream with whats called "The Emerald Nightmare", and charged a Satyr named Xavius to command it.

It's very important to Druids and the Green dragonflight for Druidic reasons etc.

Way before the well of eternity blew up and broke the world into pieces(current continents) It was one mass of land. The titans made a backup copy of it and stuck it in the emerald dream. Then (azerothian) history happened and we get the world we have today. The emerald dream, however, is like a prehistoric azeroth, and it's been overrun by old god influence, and is completely without civilization(or should be).

Well, we don't know much about it either. Conflict is Emerald Nightmare (N'Zoth and the Old Gods), players are Green Dragonflight and druidic organisations. Emerald Dream is pattern for Azeroth, it is set in time when Titans shaped the world. Why do we care? Probably because if N'Zoth's powers rises it'll be bad.

Way before the well of eternity blew up and broke the world into pieces(current continents) It was one mass of land. The titans made a backup copy of it and stuck it in the emerald dream. Then (azerothian) history happened and we get the world we have today. The emerald dream, however, is like a prehistoric azeroth, and it's been overrun by old god influence, and is completely without civilization(or should be).

Way before the well of eternity blew up and broke the world into pieces(current continents) It was one mass of land. The titans made a backup copy of it and stuck it in the emerald dream. Then (azerothian) history happened and we get the world we have today. The emerald dream, however, is like a prehistoric azeroth, and it's been overrun by old god influence, and is completely without civilization(or should be).

The nutshell version of it is the Emerald Dream is Azeroth with nothing but flora and fauna; no higher-order intelligent civilizations exist in the Emerald Dream so the land is entirely unaltered. It's basically Azeroth's beta release.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Mokoshne

Why is it so powerful if its empty?

Probably because most of its inhabitants are magical in origin; also, it's been teased for years now that Azeroth is special in the Warcraft cosmology, which suggests that a completely unaltered natural version of Azeroth would share that quality, albeit in a different form.

It's what the Titans are going to make Azeroth by the time the games overall story has ended. Think about it, why make a back-up copy?

Really, it's just Azeroth without all the changing influences of the inhabitants, both new and old, altering the world. It's also very green... hence the "Emerald". It isn't so much what it was like before the planet had races to change it. It is actually what Azeroth would look like now if their had never been any changes by the players for example.

Who are the players? N'Zoth, Titans, Ysera (though not anymore?), Malfurion (or any powerful druid I guess.
What is the conflict? N'Zoth and Xavius (not anymore) corrupting the dream with Malfurion at the helm of defending it. (My lore may be shaky here tbh)
What is the 'Emerald Dream'? Described above really.
Why do we care about it? For druids, it is incredibly important. The Wiki link would explain better than me tbh.

How would we interact with it? Thing spilling out of it or players entering?

Both, maybe? As recalcitrant as I am to bring it up, at least one non-druidic human, in Richard the Haack's novel Stormrage, can enter the Dream while conscious. I think that the Cataclysm may have cause a fundamental change in how Azeroth interacts with planes of reality, meaning that if Blizzard wanted to, they could have an explanation that in this hypothetical Emerald Dream expansion pre-event, the heroes of Azeroth become able to enter the Dream by Ysera expending much of what power she has left during an invasion from the Nightmare (which was apparently left dormant at the end of Stormrage for use as a future plot hook).

Way before the well of eternity blew up and broke the world into pieces(current continents) It was one mass of land. The titans made a backup copy of it and stuck it in the emerald dream. Then (azerothian) history happened and we get the world we have today. The emerald dream, however, is like a prehistoric azeroth, and it's been overrun by old god influence, and is completely without civilization(or should be).

This is exactly why I want this expansion.

Also, these are some of the art assets that may indicate what the Emerald Dream would look like in-game. Note that these are all very, very old, like, BC old, but that they are simply an indicator of what it may look like if we ever get it. Take the images and imagine Mists quality, plus, obviously, a finished product, versus the unfinished assets pictured.

The factions and "players" we'd most likely see would be druids, druidic organizations, the green dragonflight, satyrs, Old Gods, Old God minions, creatures and animals pre-dating intelligent Azerothian life, and forms of all the above corrupted by the Nightmare, in addition to any other creatures and factions created or added by Blizzard to further flesh out an expansion.

Both, maybe? As recalcitrant as I am to bring it up, at least one non-druidic human, in Richard the Haack's novel Stormrage, can enter the Dream while conscious. I think that the Cataclysm may have cause a fundamental change in how Azeroth interacts with planes of reality, meaning that if Blizzard wanted to, they could have an explanation that in this hypothetical Emerald Dream expansion pre-event, the heroes of Azeroth become able to enter the Dream by Ysera expending much of what power she has left during an invasion from the Nightmare (which was apparently left dormant at the end of Stormrage for use as a future plot hook).

The gates are there, yes, but previous lore also established that only druids and green dragons can use them--hence why so many people were skeptical about an Emerald Dream expansion and why you'd need to explain how non-druids can access it should the day of such an expansion come.

How would we interact with it? Thing spilling out of it or players entering?

Through a handful of quests, non-druids can already access the Dream, and there have been unused portals to the Dream scattered across Azeroth since Classic. It wouldn't be hard to explain or come up with a way for non-druids to use them.

Also, these are some of the art assets that indicate what the Emerald Dream would look like in-game. Note that these are all very, very old, like, BC old, but that they are simply an indicator of what it may look like if we ever get it. Take the images and imagine Mists quality.

<lovely images>

The factions and "players" we'd most likely see would be druids, druidic organizations, the green dragonflight, satyrs, Old Gods, Old God minions, creatures and animals pre-dating intelligent Azerothian life, and forms of all the above corrupted by the Nightmare, in addition to any other creatures and factions created or added by Blizzard to further flesh out an expansion.

Honestly, since they have plenty of assets already, I can easily see them actually making use of them lol Afterall, the Rift of Aln may not hold the Nightmare forever!

How would we interact with it? Thing spilling out of it or players entering?

Things spilled out already in the past. Vanilla's four emerald dragons were corrupted members of the Green Dragonflight that came out of the Dream through its main portals. The whole Eranikus chain is linked to the Dream - and when those four dragons were still there, you could do a quest to summon it and kill it. The Eranikus in the Sunken Temple is merely his projection.
The four portals to the Emerald Dream I'm referring to are located in Duskwood (center), Feralas (north), Ashenvale (extreme northeast) and the Hinterlands (northeast). They are not open in the sense that players can't use them at the moments, but they're there.

the emerald dream is a backup of that computer before it got the virus so if the virus ever got to a point where they couldnt fix it or it was out of control they could just blow up the computer and replace it with the backup.

thats exactly what it is. except in this case there were giant dragons guarding the backup

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon